The Death of the Monthly Active User Redefining User Metrics For The App Era

20,000-Foot View: The Monthly Active User (MAU) metric is the default measure of digital services but its usefulness is lessening. While it offered desktop-era services a better alternative to page views, its use for mobile apps is increasingly anachronistic. With the advent of smartphones, users are absorbing app-based services far more intimately into their lives, consequently leading to frequency of activity going far beyond monthly usage. To focus on whether someone briefly looks at a website or app in an environment in which weekly and daily user engagement is ever more pervasive quite simply misses the point. Digitally native companies such as those from the mobile gaming industry have already long moved beyond the limitations of the MAU, now it is the turn of the rest of the pack to follow.  Key Findings:

• MAUs are            measured differently by individual companies,            the metric easily distorted by            looking to boost their image            investors
• The average            only retains            of its customers            one month
• Mobile user            online is more task driven            absorbs particular services far more            compared to desktop behaviour
• Mobile gaming            setting the bar for next            user metrics including indicators such            ARPDAU (Average Revenue Per Daily            User)
           of smartphone users are now using up to            apps per day
• The potential            bots and messaging apps to            the app economy means in-app            analytics become crucial to modern           

Companies Mentioned In This Report: Amazon, Apple, BuzzFeed, Facebook, Instagram, King, Mashable, Netflix, Path, QQ Music,            Snapchat, Spotify, SoundCloud, Supercell, Twitter, Vine, WhatsApp, YouTube, Zynga